Saturday, November 19, 2005

Endings with 'opposite coloured bishops' have a justifiable reputation for often being drawn but the addition of a pair of rooks changes things for rook and bishop can be a significant attacking force. Morozevich was threatening to penetrate with the rook via g6 and Ni Hua therefore tried:

50 Rg3 Rxh5 51 d5! A splendid resource. If instead 51 Rxg7 Rh3+ 52 Kd2 Rd3+ wins easily. Now, however, if 51...Bxd5 52 Rxg7 the White king can run to d4 after which Black is being attacked. It's hard to tell whether Morozevich had foreseen 51 d5 though I rather suspect not but in any case he pulled himself together and after just 10 minutes or so came up with a counter shot.

51...g5! 52 dxe6?! This makes it fairly easy for Black. If 52 fxg5 e5 53 Rg1 Bxd5 is rather messy but with the White king backpedalling it out to be winning. However when I looked at 52 Rxg5 Rxg5 53 fxg5 I was surprised to find that this isn't at all trivial. If 53...Bxd5 54 Kf4 Kf7 55 Ke5 Kg6 56 Bc1 I believe that the blockade holds. Instead Black should therefore play 53...e5 54 d6 Bc6 when it looks like he is winning but it's still very complicated - and you certainly wouldn't be absolutely sure over the board.

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